Portrait of the Artist

Thomas Sully

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The English-born Philadelphian Thomas Sully painted this self-portrait for his host in Baltimore, Maryland, the broker Henry Robinson. The artist is shown interrupted at his work, with the primary tool of his profession pointed at his sharply lit head. This paintbrush device is common in artists’ self-portraits, and Sully is thought to have adapted it from a similar work by Benjamin West, with whom he had studied in London. Although Sully’s brushwork is unusually restrained here, its painterly quickness blends with the engaging spontaneity of the pose to create a sense of immediacy.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art